Political nostalgia signifies the death knell of the white Left. Denver has been overcome with it. First it was the slogan "recreate 68" which has received dozens of varying and historically intriguing critiques. Even so, the folks in Recreate 68 made compelling cases for the evocation of that complicated year referring to Paris, May of 68 and a spirit of revolution. While I don't share their analysis, they've made a concerted effort to defend their title and largely I bought their line.
Perhaps, that is, until it excused an even more nostalgic project.
A new ghost of the sixties has arrived--Come Up to Denver---a website and video based on Crosby, Stills and Nash's song Come To Chicago. I am not sure why people believe that youth culture can be revived via nostalgia for the 60s white counter-culture, a subculture fraught with racism, patriarchy, hierarchical leadership, and other systems and structures rejected by the best of contemporary activism.
Let me say it once and for all : I think evoking the sixties as an inspiration to today's youth is a bad idea.
When I saw the video Come Up to Denver for the first time I couldn't decide whether I should laugh or cry. Sometimes the only response to cliché is cliché.
Unlike Denver, the people in the video are largely, if not entirely white. The musicians are wallowing in an earnest glorification of musty music. The music video contracts grim shots of left-over, white hippies in Denver with Civil Rights era masses protesting in full force. In desperation, the contemporary outmoded hippies cling to a few uninspired, hand-scrawled signs.
The image conveyed by so-called activists is pathetic. It fails to capture the truly inspirational actions going on throughout town--productive projects like The Derailer Bicycle Collective, INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence, Food Not Bombs, Cafe Cultural, Cafe Nuba, Sisters of Color United For Education, Art in Motion, Transform Columbus Day and Denver Open Media.
A misused image of Abu Ghraib and an illustration of a black man tied to a chair accompany the badly sung song. These two still images are two of the few photographic references to the struggles of people of color. Static, frozen icons, bodies of color become symbolic objects for the misguided benevolent white activists to giddily, happily try to demonstrate on behalf of. The paternalistic objectification and inability to include moving images of people of color betrays the resurgence of 60s style racism, a wolf hiding in hairy, white skin.
What's stranger than what is shown is that the video erases inspirational contemporary histories--the recent May 1st immigration marches in Denver where tens of thousands protested corrupt immigration policy, the hundreds of thousands in the streets who protested the Republican National Convention and the millions around the world who protested the war.
The video fails to address local issues of race--police brutality, housing foreclosures, mass incarceration of people of color, failures of the education, health, and social service sector alike. By erasing activists of color and the issues communities of color face, the video traffics in a white supremacist, white cultural narcissism even the two-party system has moved beyond with its problematic tokenism of Barack Obama, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell.
Rarely do I use my blog to criticize people trying to do good things. In this case, my sincere belief is that without a harsh critique of the video's erasure of people of color, glorification of outmoded, anachronistic, failed 60s movements, and inability to appeal to all but a handful of nostalgic, white, aging hippies unaware of white supremacy, many far from Denver might assume that this video represents what the protest movements at the Democratic National Convention will be all about.
Fortunately, this assumption can be dead wrong.
With fierce actions promoting immigrant rights, combating the prison industrial complex, racist military recruiting strategies, the white gentrification of communities of color, and environmental racism, the protests at this years conventions have the opportunity to be a new jumping off point in anti-authoritarian organizing where the much neglected issues of race finally come to the surface as the anachronistic white Left withers into oblivion.
6.26.08. COME UP TO DENVER AND RECREATE 68 ARE TWO ENTIRELY DISTINCT PROJECTS. RECREATE 68 DID NOT PRODUCE THE VIDEO COME UP TO DENVER.
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7 comments:
The fact that a majority of "white" people are willing to put their bodies on the line for all those causes you expressed to be as though they were superior only when represented by people who aren't 'white' is something worthy of appreciation. Would you rather a small group of elite 'whites' make all the preparations behind the scenes, then mislead as many non-'whites' as possible to do the gritty work of facing a brutal police line as cannon fodder? I can see in your pictures that you are easily identified as 'white' by those who think in socially divisive cliches. Furthermore, what's worse, showboating hippy facades from 1968 or dictating from a holier-than-thou perspective using the ignorant language of sexist and racist social constructions - albeit reversed - to reinforce that pathetic radical puritanism of the 1990s? Attacking other activists who are spending their time organizing what may well be the most important protest of the year AS VOLUNTEERS - FOR FREE - just because you're clique is not showcased by the corporate press as representing the cutting edge of political action like theirs is truly pathetic. Don't complain about their action...take action yourself. I don't like the name "re-create 68" either, and no one wants to endure the 1960s again, agreed, however; if you focus on the profile of those taking action and ignore their action then you are clearly thinking in terms of counterproductivity. Stop crying and do some work. If you want the movement to look a certain way then you have to be the one who takes charge of that objective. Otherwise you are only assisting the opposition in taking attention off the important issues and contributing to divisive and disruptive gossip!
Dear Anonymous,
I have no problem with white people putting themselves on the line. I have a problem with white people erasing the work people of color are already doing in Denver and in the DNC protests. I have a problem with white culture's colonial impulse to dominate organizing and representations of organizing.
I am not critiquing these activists identities but rather their representation of their identities. I am suggesting that media makers take into account the struggles of people of color rather than erase them.
You'll be happy to know that I am already working on organizing in community, on the DNC, and with many of the people I critique. As a white person, and perhaps I should have acknowledged my identity in the initial post, I am concerned that we as white people have made our organizing an uncomfortable experience for many people of color and have engaged in alienating behavior.
You say that by acknowledging the racism of our movements I am taking the attention off the important issues; however, it is my fervent belief that issues of race are the most important issues and that as organizers working on what you call the most important protests of the year we have an obligation to openly discus the racial politics of our actions.
Checking the racism within our movement is one way of ensuring that a broader coalition can form. Were I to backbite in private whiny sessions about these issues, I would be contributing to gossip. Rather, with my identity open, I am willing to offer my criticism in a spirit of debate. This is critique--not gossip. I am happy to hash this out in public in an open spirit of debate with anyone who wants to discuss it.
Sincerely,
Kyle
This post and the accompanying comments encapsulates perfectly for me why I have become alienated from community organizing in the Denver Anarchist Scene.
1. On one hand the video makers from "Come up to Denver" are criticized for trying to erase the struggles of People of Color, but on the other hand I feel that if they had included footage of those struggles they would have been accused of hi-jacking those struggles' momentum. Why do I say this? because I've heard that critique before. So in effect this critique becomes a critique of using "white music" to try to draw people to Denver; not an attempt to erase the struggles of People of Color, but trying to organize with lame music that will have the negative effect of alienating some people.
2. My second objection is to the building of a hierarchy around issues. I have long felt this tendency within the anarchist movement. I have also felt it in every other group I've talked to in different ways. Shit, just a few years ago I would have given you some brilliantly naive analysis about how because I grew up gay, I understood all there was to know about discrimination. Stupid, yes. Naive, fuck yeah. But so is the placing of any struggle up above another. Whether it be race, gender, class. I think you have to look at all the intersections of an issue. I do believe that issues of race are mostly ignored and misrepresented when white people are doing the organizing; I also believe that queer issues are often overlooked and misrepresented by straight organizers. But I don't think that building a hierarchy of issues solves these problems, in fact I think it makes them worse and its why we are having these problems in the first place.
3. One last thing, to be fair I did find the use of the Abu Ghraib and Civil Rights struggles footage in the original video to be seriously exploitative, especially when you cut back to show only white protesters and organizers. Where was the footage from the Four Directions March and other movements that have successfully organized across racial and gender lines? These images would have been more effective.
4. Oh shit, I just reread the paragraph that originally annoyed me:
"The video fails to address local issues of race--police brutality, housing foreclosures, mass incarceration of people of color, failures of the education, health, and social service sector alike. By erasing activists of color and the issues communities of color face, the video traffics in a white supremacist, white cultural narcissism [...]
This is what I mean by building a hierarchy of issues--there are also no queer issues expressed in the video and yet you do not call the videographers heterosexists: Ah sixties nostalgia, nostalgia for a time before all white protesters were assumed gay...
That shit doen't upset you, in fact in never occured to you!
Heartfully awaiting the response,
303 Locavore
Dear Denver Locavore,
Thank you for your comments and critique (I should have also thanked the previous commenter--anonymous--Thank You anonymous).
Firstly, it is regrettable that critical dialog alienates people from movements. The dialog started with the video and continued with my initial post and then the two responses thus far received. I do believe movements are strengthened by dialog and were thousands of videos, some of which I like and some of which I don't, to receive more critical scrutiny, we'd be better off. In fact, the more conversations and actions that happen the better. A diversity of opinions and actions makes a movement a reality. I believe much of our alienation comes from an inability to have frank dialog. Thankfully, you've commented on this post and engaged in community dialog rather than lonely misanthropy. Direct communication is a revolutionary act against capitalist alienation.
You neglect to address my critiques of nostalgia which drive my analysis. I would be curious as to your thoughts on the resurrection of the hippy as the icon of cultural struggle?
I object to the critique that my practice builds a hierarchy of issues. Couch Potato Revolution addresses the intersections of issues. While this critique focuses on race, I am sure you will find intersectional content elsewhere on this site and I will commit to making a point of renewing my commitment to intersectional analysis.
Now that you mention it, I would love to see more radical queer actions in the video--hell I'd love to see more radical queer actions in Denver! No doubt issues of police brutality, mass incarceration, failing health, education, and social service sectors effect more than people of color--poor people, queer folks, women, disable people of all races are effected because of their oppressed identities.
As a queer person who works on intersectional issues, I would love to see the Democratic National Convention protests address all these issues; however, as a white person whose analysis is often tainted by the privileges our racist society has bestowed upon me through theft of land and labor, I believe it is incumbent on me to prioritize race analysis as it is quite easy in my comfort as a middle class, white man to assume the invisibility of race and reassert the power of the invisible empire, the assumption that white culture is normal.
Whether or not you agree with my analysis, I would encourage you and all other people to renew their commitment to analysis and action regarding intersecting issues. I would also encourage white people organizing around the convention to bring racial analysis to the forefront of their critique. What I did not state explicitly in my original post is that Barack Obama is bringing a renewed hope for change in race relations in the United States. If the libertarian left fails to bring race into the conversation, capitalism will have an easy victory in the two party system. Because of this unique historical moment, it is strategic for race analysis to be front-and-center in our critiques of the Democratic Party.
I am happy that both you and Anonymous are committed enough to our movement to engage in dialog. I look forward to working with you both, Recreate 68, and the makers of Come Up To Denver in solidarity for liberation and in critical dialog in the streets.
I found this blog polluted--Absolutely polluted with ageism! Let's quote a few tidbits shall we:
"I am not sure why people believe that youth culture can be revived via nostalgia for the 60s white counter-culture..."
who's reviving youth culture? this video isn't meant for todays youth, its an epistle from the old-but-still-truckin' hippies to the lapsed-hippie-yuppie-scum neo-cons. And its says, "come back to the fold, remember the last time you actually lived how you dreamed? it was 1968..."
These lapsed-hippies have been selfish oil-chugging neo-cons for the last 40 years, and now after an endless 7 years of war (a war that reminds them of Viet nam) they feel something beating deep within their cold grinch chest! Their beautiful day-glo psychedelic heart. This epistle says, "quit your corporate job! transform to old toater oven to bio-diesel and caravan up to Denver. Jerry may be dead, but Ben and Jerry ain't..." sorry got carried away.
quote #2:
"nostalgia for the 60s white counter-culture, a subculture fraught with racism, patriarchy, hierarchical leadership..."
Now you're starting to sound Kerouac's Mom. the 60's counter-culture also brought us the Free Speech Movement, the Independent Media Movement (all those far out newspapers), the Sexual Revolution, the environmental movement, the women's movement ... You'd also appreciate the women's movement a bit more if you were as anti-patriarchal as you lead on. (and Yes, the women's movement of the sixties was often more like the "white womens movement. Point taken.)
quote #3:
"Let me say it once and for all : I think evoking the sixties as an inspiration to today's youth is a bad idea."
Let me say it once and for all: fuck today's youth! The video has nothing to do with them. You sound like a fucking capitalist: what does the 18-30 male population feel about our product? Well let me say once and for all I couldn't give a fuck what your texting and driving and running down bicyclists in the bike lane generation feels about my video! You're as self-absorbed as any baby boomer!
quote #4:
"glorification of outmoded, anachronistic, failed 60s movements, and inability to appeal to all but a handful of nostalgic, white, aging hippies"
Every ism is banned in anarchist land but age-ism! "Ageing hippies" indeed! Only in the US could a member of the political class such as yourself get away with disrespecting your elders because they are old and out-moded. This from an self-proclaimed anarchist even!
See ya at the next Spanish Civil War Re-enactment!
Sincerely,
an Aged Hippie
Within the imperialist United States, antiwar activists have an internationalist obligation to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan to attempt to build street protests at the national conventions of the two Establishment parties responsible for funding the endless war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the most effective way that white antiwar activists can usually encourage people of color to participate and take on more leadership responsibilities at protest events like the 1968 "Battle of Chicago" or the 2008 Denver DNC Antiwar Protests in larger numbers, is to mobilize as many white antiwar protesters as possible to protest against U.S. imperialism.
Using anti-racist rhetoric to try to bait or to try to demoralize the folks who are acting in solidarity with the victims of U.S. imperialism by building the 2008 Democratic DNC antiwar protests actually decreases, I think, the likelihood that a mass movement which finally ends institutional racism in Denver and other cities will eventually be created.
Anti-Racism means joining people of color in THEIR struggles (when invited to as allies), not expecting them to join ours. That expectation is as paternalistic as it is racist. Whites have often asked "Why don't more people of color join us?" instead of asking "What awesome work is being undertaken and led by POCs to which we could bring our excessive and unearned privileges (money, lawyers, media) to bear effectively?"
Thanks Professional Couch Potato for starting an essential discussion about whiteness in our movements.
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